As The Open 2014 gets under way at Royal Liverpool, Andrew Marszal explains
the hazards and sand traps that await new players to the game. Consider
yourself FOREwarned

Call it false advertising, but there’s nothing in the rules to prevent a fairway having its wicked way with your perfect, straight drive. Links courses like The Open's Royal Liverpool specialise in undulating fairways, where a huge drive down the middle can easily ricochet into the heather for a tough recovery shot or lost ball.

Infuriating.

2. Don't wait to hear 'fore'

Anyone with the vaguest grasp of golfing etiquette knows you’re supposed to shout “fore” when that embarrassingly wayward drive starts veering off at a fellow player. But whatever the incomprehensible, panicked splutter that emits from your throat as the ball homes in its prey, it rarely sounds much like the number after three.

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General rule – if you hear anything resembling a distressed hyena, take cover.

3. Nobody can hit a one iron

Club selection is always a tricky one, but if you ever catch yourself reaching for a low iron, stop and remember the greatest piece of golfing wisdom ever spoken: “If you are caught on a golf course during a storm and are afraid of lightning, hold up a 1-iron. Not even God can hit a 1-iron.”

4. Driving ranges exist in a parallel universe

Driving ranges are great – the perfect way to iron out a fault in your swing, rediscover your rhythm after a long break from the game, or simply let out some office stress by aiming 100 consecutive drives at the back fence.

Just don’t expect it to make the slightest bit of difference when you step up to the first tee.

5. Only dicks dress like Payne Stewart

The late, great Payne Stewart knew how to rock a pair of plus-fours. He even looked good in a tam-o’-shanter hat. But don’t be fooled: for anyone who isn't a three-time major winner like Stewart, the quintessential golfing attire is difficult to pull off. Irony isn’t enough to hide behind – however hard you try, you’ll look like a pub-golf stag night gone wrong.

Pop on a polo shirt.

Payne Stewart sinks his final putt to win the 1991 U. S. Open at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, Minnesota

6. There’s no accounting for style

There’s no worse feeling than seeing that perfectly measured, sublimely flighted approach shot skim inches past the hole and trickle down a hidden slope at the back of the green. Except one – when your fellow player then takes a crude swipe at his ball, tops it down the side of the fairway, through the bunker and up onto the green for a one-foot tap-in.

Low and flat shots may not look pretty, but it’s the score that counts.

7. Golf is very, very hard

Watching the pros, even on an unforgiving links course like Royal Liverpool, you’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise. But golf takes hours, years or even a lifetime to master.

As Bob Hope famously put it, “If you watch a game, it's fun. If you play it, it's recreation. If you work at it, it's golf”

8. Nobody will ever believe you when you say it's good exercise

Assuming you haven't splashed out on a buggy, or even a caddy, you’re lugging 14 lumps of metal around on your back for at least five miles. On a busy day you’re on your feet for upwards of four hours – plus you’ve got to actually hit the ball occasionally. Just don’t expect any sympathy from your partner when that beer belly inexplicably keeps on growing, despite your diligent summer spent playing 19 holes every day …

9. You can always get worse …

They say that no matter how badly you play at golf, it is always possible to get worse. You might not believe it when you’re hacking your way through the undergrowth, unable to believe that you’ve let that five-shot lead disappear, but trust me – it can.

10. … but you don't have to be good to enjoy it

As a famous quotation attributed to the American golfer Jimmy DeMaret nicely summarises: “Golf and sex are the only things you can enjoy without being good at them”.

Never a truer word, I suspect, though I’d have to check with my ex-girlfriend to confirm.